What Advisors Think of New Spot Bitcoin ETFs

Analysis January 11, 2024 at 02:59 PM
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Now that exchange-traded funds investing in bitcoin have won landmark approval from U.S. regulators, financial advisors face a decision on how to guide clients on including or excluding the securities from portfolios.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday gave a green light to Fidelity, BlackRock, Invesco and other firms to sell 11 ETFs that invest directly in the cryptocurrency.

At the same time, the commission urged caution on bitcoin and products linked to the asset. The SEC noted that it doesn't endorse bitcoin.

Trading started Thursday.

"Spot bitcoin ETFs are the best option on the fund market for bitcoin investors," Bryan Armour, director of passive strategies research for North America and editor of Morningstar ETFInvestor newsletter at Morningstar, wrote in a column.

Armour noted that the ETFs' prices should closely follow bitcoin's, before fees and trading costs. Investors, however, should put their money into the bitcoin ETFs only if the investment makes sense for them, he added.

In response to ThinkAdvisor queries, five advisors offered their views, by email, on how they would suggest that clients approach the new ETFs.

"We are an investment advisor focusing on digital assets. We obviously recommend direct ownership of bitcoin and other crypto assets, However, a spot bitcoin ETF is a decent option for those looking to gain exposure," said Mike Soroudi, vice president for operations and compliance at Digital Asset Investment Management.

"The pros are that it creates a more diversified portfolio and even a small allocation, 5-10%, can add meaningful alpha for an investor over long time horizons. Bitcoin is volatile, but its volatility favors the upside over time. Therefore adding it to a portfolio can and has been shown to improve a portfolio's Sharpe ratio, which relates the return to the risk undertaken, over time," he added.

"The major downside of the ETF is that it is a less efficient product due to tracking error," he added. "The ETF will be cash-settled, trade during market hours instead of 24/7, and have a management fee paid to the company offering the ETF. These issues will lead to the ETF price dislocating from the underlying spot bitcoin price. It will be a small difference but could add up over time."

Ross Dugas, founder and financial advisor at Scientific Financial, takes an entirely different approach.

"Scientific Financial does not recommend investing in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. We take a traditional view of investing in which investors own a fraction of profit-generating companies. Those profits flow back to investors through either dividends or stock appreciation, leading to a justifiable valuation," he said.

"Cryptocurrencies do not generate profits. Unlike traditional investments, there is no quantifiable value for cryptocurrencies. In our view, cryptocurrencies are very high risk, speculative assets that are best avoided," Dugas added.

Terry Parham Jr., co-founder and financial planner at Innovative Wealth Building, seems to land somewhere in the middle.

"It's all about moderation," he said. "If a person dedicates a large portion of their assets to traditional, time-tested strategies, then I believe it then grants them the ability to also invest money in new, exciting opportunities that have higher risk and potentially higher rewards.

"Whenever we plan around new topics, we tend to lean on what we already know. Conventional wisdom suggests not investing more than 5-10% of a person's total portfolio into an individual stock. Further, a wise investor would also avoid being too heavily invested in one particular sector or one particular segment of the market," he explained.

"To me, bitcoin, and cryptocurrency, is an interesting blend of individual security, technology and commodity.  By viewing the investment opportunity through those three lenses, I think it's possible to arrive at a sensible asset allocation that balances risk and potential reward. As a starting point, an allocation of 1-5% toward bitcoin might be a reasonable starting point for many investors," Parham said.

Alex Lozano, founder and financial planner at Lozano Group Wealth Management, sees bitcoin and bitcoin ETFs as speculative instruments.

"Investment recommendations should come because the investment is deemed suitable to achieve the objectives of the client 'goals' such as retirement, education, legacy, gifting," he said.

An SEC-approved bitcoin ETF "would be deemed a volatile and speculative investment in which only speculative investors should participate. I would not recommend investors to invest in such an ETF, unless they had the ability to lose their investment or hold it for long periods of time," Lozano wrote.

Rich Siminou, principal and financial advisor at Siminou Wealth Management, has urged clients to invest directly in cryptocurrency.

"I advised my clients to open accounts on Coinbase to purchase bitcoin and ethereum directly to a comfortable amount they're willing to sleep on. In terms of their portfolios, we've been investors in COIN (Coinbase Global Inc.) and MARA (Marathon Digital Holdings Inc.) mainly on swing trades and not allocating more than 1-2% of their portfolio," Siminou said.

As for benefits of a bitcoin ETF, it "allows for different clientele to access the space," he wrote. The cons are that "it may take away the performance of stocks like COIN and MARA, in addition to reducing the moment for owning crypto directly on Coinbase."

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